My Husband Said He Caught Our Nanny Doing Something Horrific on the Nanny Cam. When I Checked the Footage, That’s Not What I Saw.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My husband “Shane” and I have two kids, “Olivia,” 1, and “Bryson,” 3. I recently went back to my office after working from home since my daughter was born. We were very lucky to find a wonderful sitter, “Nadia,” to watch the kids. Still, since you can never be too careful these days, we installed nanny cams in the house. Last week Shane called me up at work in a furor, saying he checked the cams and saw Nadia do something with Bryson that warrants us firing her immediately. I waited in terror as he sent me the footage, expecting some horrible abuse. Instead, what I saw was Nadia teaching Bryson some ballet dance steps, and Bryson loving every minute! I angrily called my husband and asked if this was some kind of sick joke on his part. His response was that we aren’t going to keep a sitter “who is trying to turn our son gay.” Shane has occasionally made some snide remarks about boys who dance and do things that aren’t considered traditionally masculine, but I never thought it ran this deep! Now we are at war about letting Nadia go. The kids love her, she’s great with them, and I’m not willing to try and find someone new because Shane can’t get over his stupid insecurities. What can I do to shut him down? —Ballet Battle Dear Ballet Battle, You’ve identified the problem: You weren’t aware how homophobic your homophobic husband is, and now you need to figure out how to make him less homophobic—or else. This is tricky because you love him and he is your children’s father, but also, he’s a homophobe, and that will even create more problems for you and your family later on, much bigger ones than this whole babysitter incident. Especially if your children are queer, having a hateful, homophobic parent is dangerous to them. My suggestion to you is that you give him an ultimatum: either he stops being homophobic, gets some therapy, and begins to educate himself, or you will divorce him because he’s a homophobe. This guide on overcoming internal homophobia from the Trevor Project is a good starting point for his education. Be firm about this—you know he’s wrong. Tell him as many times as he needs to hear it, but also give yourself a timetable for when enough is finally enough. And obviously don’t fire the babysitter. —A.J. More Parenting Advice From Slate I am the mother of a very outgoing and charming 2-and-a-half-year-old girl. People often tell me she brightens their day with her warm and caring disposition. I adore her personality and want to continue to foster her open nature. However, I also want to teach her healthy boundary setting, particularly when it comes to stranger danger. I am struggling right now with the realization that the world at large is not quite aligned with what I imagined to be obvious boundaries—for example, don’t touch a child or anyone you don’t know. Recently, we were at the museum of natural history when a stranger interacted with her in a manner that I found to be very concerning. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Kids